Gérard Depardieu has been discovered responsible of sexually assaulting two girls throughout a movie shoot in 2021 and given an 18 month suspended jail sentence.
Depardieu, France’s greatest movie star, who has made greater than 200 movies and TV sequence, is the highest-profile figure within the French movie business to be convicted of sexual assault because the #MeToo motion.
The 76-year-old, who was not in court docket for the decision, was convicted of sexually assaulting a 54-year-old set dresser and a 34-year-old assistant director throughout the taking pictures of the function movie Les Volets Verts (The Inexperienced Shutters) in Paris in September 2021.
The court docket heard that Depardieu trapped the set decorator, recognized solely as Amélie, between his legs on the movie set and grabbed her buttocks, pubis and chest. She mentioned he trapped her with power, used obscene language and needed to be pulled off her.
Depardieu focused Amélie on set when she was making cellphone calls to trace down parasols for the movie. He allegedly mentioned: “Come and contact my huge parasol. I’ll stick it in your pussy.”
Amélie instructed the court docket that he then grabbed her hips, pulled her in the direction of him and trapped her between his thighs with nice power, and grabbed her physique, together with her pubis, waist and chest.
“That’s the place I understood the energy he had, he held me very, very arduous,” she mentioned. “I keep in mind his eyes, I noticed this huge face, crimson eyes, very indignant, very agitated. And he was saying: ‘Come contact my huge parasol,’ with a loopy look. I’ve by no means seen something like that.”
She mentioned: “That concern that I felt – what stands out for me is just not his sexual want however his savagery. It was the truth that he knew I used to be afraid – I noticed his eyes gentle up with a sort of pleasure in making somebody afraid. I keep in mind that savagery. He actually terrified me, and that amused him.”
Depardieu was additionally convicted of sexually assaulting an assistant director on the identical movie, touching her breasts or buttocks on three separate events. The girl, who was not named within the media, was tasked with accompanying Depardieu from his dressing room on to the set throughout the filming. She mentioned the assaults left her “petrified”.
The assistant director instructed the court docket {that a} first sexual assault occurred throughout an evening shoot in Paris, when she discovered herself alone with Depardieu on the finish of a brief street the place his dressing room was positioned as they walked in the direction of an outside set.
She mentioned the second assault occurred at a later date on a set inside a Paris condo, the place Depardieu blocked her in opposition to a door and put his two arms on her breasts. She instructed the court docket: “I mentioned no. I used to be scared.”
She mentioned that on a 3rd event Depardieu put his hand on her buttocks and he or she once more mentioned: “No.”
The assistant director instructed the court docket that Depardieu “talked about intercourse all day on set, continually speaking of ‘pussy’ to everybody”.
Depardieu denied sexual assault. He instructed the trial that the media had used allegations in opposition to him to wreck his popularity. He attacked the #MeToo movement in addition to girls who had held protest placards exterior a live performance tour he was on on the time of the allegations. “This motion goes to change into a terror,” he mentioned.
Depardieu’s trial was seen as a turning point for the French cinema industry, which has been accused of being gradual – even resistant – to taking girls’s claims of abuse critically.
A damning parliamentary report by French politicians concluded final month that sexual violence and sexual harassment remained “endemic” in France’s leisure business and that ladies and youngsters have been nonetheless being routinely preyed on.
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